Holly Would If He Could

We're lounging around Damon's pool in Woodland Hills. There's no shade and we take turns applying tanning oil on each other's toned bodies or just lie there wasted and stare at the sun and sometimes Taylor rolls a joint and when Licensed To Ill ends no one gets up to turn the tape over. Can you swim laps on Librium Lauren asks and I can't keep my eyes away from the blue aquamarine water and the sun is beating down and my entire field of vision is rippling in slow motion making me dizzy. Yeah but there are quicker ways to end it someone finally says and I tear my gaze away from the pool and watch Damon lying on his back dripping water onto the hot concrete and pulling on a joint. He catches me staring and I roll over and fall into the chlorine water and slowly sink to the bottom. The water is warm like blood and I hear the muffled sounds of the wind and Lauren's voice without really listening, like a foetus in a womb.

Later I'm doing coke in Damon's upstairs bathroom with a girl named Helen or Heather and we can hear the party raging downstairs, the bassline thumping through the marble floor like a heartbeat. The girl is slowly undulating to the music, barefoot in the bathtub, head thrown back, her long hair caressing her naked shoulder. She's thin and sweet and gorgeous in her short silver dress and keeps repeating my name as I adjust myself in the mirror and splash cold water on my face. My champagne has gone flat and I leave her to gyrate and exit the room. There are people everywhere in the corridors and on the stairs. Some I recognize, others recognize me.

I reach the living room and this girl I may or may not know bumps into me and kisses me on the mouth before looking at me with a wet smile, slightly puzzled. I take her drink and down it in one go and gently push by her into the room which is throbbing with dancing bodies and Green Day playing on the B&O stereo system. On cue, a girl in velvet pants tears off her Comme Des Garçons T-dress and jumps on the Stark coffee table and starts thrashing around in her panties until finally the glass breaks under her feet and sends her sprawling in the arms of some drunk fraternity boy while onlookers cheer wildly. Beverly spots me from across the room and starts making her way towards me, waving. I pretend I don't notice and casually pogo out of the room and into the kitchen.

Lauren is leaning by the sink and groping this famous soap star and MTV celebrity. Taylor is passionately making out on the kitchen table with a peroxide blonde who looks like my shrink. I ask him if he's seen Damon or Akiko and he say yes no yes they're by the pool. A dozen girls, including the green-haired Truth in Advertising crew are sitting on the gravel under the giant cacti in the patio, passionately discussing Bresson and Ozu. They give me mean looks as I edge past them on the way to the pool.

Akiko and Damon are lying in the grass gazing up at the stars. I light a cigarette and lie down beside Akiko. She reaches out and takes my warm hand in her own, holding it there as the three of us stare at the heavens. Somewhere beyond the hills a coyote howls. The air is buzzing with laughter and music and the sound of dragonflies skimming the pool's surface. I have a vision of our bodies decomposing in fast forward, the colors saturated, our eyes sinking into our skulls and insects devouring our tanned skin and toned muscle tissue and the vegetation slowly invading our collapsing ribcages. After a while the image disappears and I realize I'm clutching Akiko's hands, my palms sweating onto her soft skin.

Damon and Akiko slowly rise to their feet and motion for me to follow them. We walk to Damon's black Jeep convertible, climb into the car, I sit in the back, Damon starts the engine. I feel like the world is coming to an end and see myself jumping out of the vehicle and running to the house, screaming at the top of my lungs. But again the image quickly fades. Damon steers the car onto the gravel and up the hill. At the top, we come to a platform overlooking the valley and pull over by the side of the road. We have a clear view of the mansion a hundred feet beneath us. The house seems to vibrate with the party's energy, glowing in the Californian night.

And suddenly the house, the cars parked along the winding road, the entire hill start to tremble. I reach for the headrest in front of me and stare at the spectacle in total fascination. The house is now vibrating strongly as windows begin to shatter. The noise is deafening, and all around us the earth is shaking. Cries of panic reach us from the three-storied mansion which starts to gradually crumble on itself, the walls giving in as entire parts of the roof drop onto the garden and slide into the pool. BMWs are thrown onto one another. Huge sequoias crash to the ground. The earthquake lasts almost an entire minute and all the while I'm thinking that Damon and Akiko knew of this somehow and I want to ask them but can't find the words and remain silent, mouth open, transfixed by the scene. When all seems to quiet down the shouting and wailing remains.

After several minutes we can make out the shapes of several giant reptilians coming out of the bushes and from the trees behind the house, attracted by the noise and the smell of blood. They quickly invade the grounds and tear at the debris looking for survivors. One of the carnivorous lizards is dragging the body of a dismembered girl in a torn Gucci dress onto the road. Others are devouring teenagers who've managed to escape the imploding building.

Without a word Damon guns the engine and reverses into the road. We drive down Tarzana to Encino and Sherman Oaks and disappear into the highway's merging traffic.